


A Series of Presents

by Alisette



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-03 01:36:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6591337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alisette/pseuds/Alisette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the Outsider takes a particular interest in the well-being of a certain empress or: Finding just the right gifts for your appointed niece is much easier if you can see the future and being subtle is for those who strive to be boring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Series of Presents

It's the morning of her 11th birthday when she finds the basket in front of her door, the card on top proclaiming 'to Empress Emily Kaldwin' in such chicken scratch that it's barely legible, and with the joy of someone far too young to understand the potential danger of such gifts, she pulls the covers of the basket to reveal a small furry animal within, white and plush and eager to hop onto her lap and rub against her hand.

  
Her squee of delight is enough to bring Corvo and three servants running only to find to her sitting on the ground, cross-legged, with the animal currently climbing around her shoulders and legs.

  
Emily looks up at them with a smile, and decrees it the best birthday present ever.

  
Corvo doesn't quite do anything as undignified as 'losing it', but he manages to convey a great sense of urgency as he thoroughly inspects the animal and the basket and the card and then sends latter two off to Sokolov and Pierro for further inspection, but there's nothing amiss with it - provided that you can ignore that it's undoubtly a very fluffy white rat, which he does, once the animal starts nibbling on the glove over his left hand with decided motivation.

  
Both basket and card come up perfectly ordinary. The rat stays and gets the name Helena and sleeps in Emily bed every night and the young empress' nightmares seem to avoid her.

  
For the next few years, people attempt to breed replicas of the white dwarf hound that accompanies the empress everywhere. They fail.

  
\------

  
The next gift arrives when she turns 16 and only shortly before the first suitors start trampling down her door. It's a birdcage, gilded and ornamented and oddly enough it contains no bird of any kind but instead a plant. It's something gorgeous and flowering and Corvo takes it right to Sokolov the moment he lays eyes on it, darkly muttering the whole time.

  
As it turns out, the plant is pandyssian, and carnivorous, as the natural philosopher demonstrates aptly with a mouse that's placed in the cage. The moment it touches one of the vines that flow over the edge of the pot the plant is in, the vines explode in thorns and pull the still squirming animal into the bright red flower to devour it.

  
Emily decrees that she'll feed it well and takes the plant back to her room herself, placing it on the window sill. It stays in the cage for the rest of the year, until after Helena has died of old age. The night after it gets taken out of the cage, Emily wakes from the sound of a long scream and then a thud from the courtyard far below her window.

  
When she rushes over to see, the vines of the flower are bloodied and the finger of a leathergloves still sticks on the thorns. Far below the corpse of a masked man is lying on the cobblestones, with a halo of blood around his head. She can see how white his finger is where his gloves were torn. Later they tell her that he had a garotte with him, and knives. The plant never goes back into the cage.

  
\------

  
The next gift comes just a year later, at her 17th. It's a knife, small and slender and the handle is encrusted with precious stones until it looks more like a piece of jewelry than a weapon. The card attached to it reads 'you should practice' as if she doesn't already do that. Corvo had taught her the basics and kept practicing them with her but she takes the knife and asks him for more extensive training. Her father takes a look at the knife, at the white stones that she thinks ivory and he knows to be whale bone and complies with a sigh. The sparring battles become a regular sight for the servants, who shake their heads and mutter about proper teaching for an empress but the next time a suitor corners her in the library and gets too close she leaves him bloody and bruised and Corvo is mad at himself for letting her out of his sight long enough for that to happen at all and the same time fiercely proud. The training continues

  
\-------

  
On her 20th the gift is a piece of straight up jewelry, a necklace that looks like a waterfall of pearls and whales carved from seashell and Emily takes it straight to her father and then her tailor. At her next outing she wears the necklace proudly but something about it is off that night and she retires early, before the dessert buffet has been served.

  
Corvo stays, rubbing the back of his left hand the whole time, feeling the same offness and when the first guest chokes on the sugared berry bread that's Emily's favourite he knows why. He spends the night outside and the next morning the city is all rumors about poisoned food and a shadow that walked the city. Two nights later the royal guards are presented with the guilty party, neatly trussed up in front of their door, unconscious and with a written confession in his pocket.

  
\--------

  
The 22nd bring her a scarf of gorgeous purple fabric that makes her father sputter in reaction and then ask her, very quietly, not to wear it in the open. She complies, but she keeps the gift anyways, in the same box that holds the necklace. The jeweled knife stays in her pocket until a year later she's gifted something sleeker and longer, less decoration and more murder. It's perfectly balanced in her hand and Corvo teaches her to throw it well enough to spear a thrown apple in midair. Her training has moved far beyond hand to hand combat by now, to sneaking and running and climbing, crossbows. She can recognize the most common poisons by scent and move soundless along the shadows.

  
\-------

  
At 24 she recieves a pair of gloves made especially for climbing and takes them to good use right away, scaling Dunwall Tower in the early hours of the morning to watch the sunrise. It's worth the lecture.

  
\--------

  
At 25 she's on the run, in Karnaca, when her birthday comes. She'd completely forgotten about it, caught between political intrigue and dreams that leave her restless. When she wakes on her birthday from her hiding place by the river shore, something is blinking up from the water despite the cloud cover so she goes to check for it, careful not to be spotted. It's a mask, the fine gears of it obviously Pierro's work. She would have known what it was even if she'd never heard about the Boyle's last party, even if she'd never asked her father about it. But she knows, and her shoulder's are stiff with resolve when she shakes the sand and water from it.

  
"Enjoy your presents, Empress." A voice whispers over her shoulder, alien and familiar and way too close and she whirls around with the blade already unfolding in her hands, but there's no one behind her. There's laughter on the river breeze, but nobody it could belong to.

  
Just as well. She has things to do anyways. There are people she must find and... speak to.

**Author's Note:**

> As Dishonored 2 approaches I felt like I had to flex my writing muscles into the general direction of our glorious killer queen. And I think we all can agree that the fandom needs more 'weird gifts from uncle outsider' things.


End file.
